JWR Articles
By S. James Wegg
Xiayin
Wang, piano
League of American Orchestra Conference
June 18, 2010
League of American Orchestra Conference
June 18, 2010
The reward for attending Friday morning’s annual meeting and breakfast was the opportunity to hear pianist Xiayin Wang between the official proceedings and presentations. It takes special courage to agree to perform in a room full of clattering cutlery and door crashes as the delegates came and went. Not only was Wang fearless under fire, she produced some of the finest musical moments of the entire conference.
Earl Wild’s arrangement of George Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm” was given an edgy, perhaps a touch brittle, reading with stellar left-hand work throughout. That zesty opener was followed by a captivatingly-refined view of Claude Debussy’s L’Isle Joyeuse” where Wang’s easy confidence belied the considerable technical challenges—and at 8:10 a.m. no less!
Her second set (management wisely parsed the morning’s requirements into three distinct acts with a pair of musical interludes) concluded with Wild’s “Toccata (à la Ricky Martin) “which was fuelled with super-test power and had just right amounts of weight/wait.
Yet it was the Bach-Marcello version of the Adagio from Concerto in D Minor that brought the room to a magnificent standstill and a truly shared experience. From the first beautifully balanced/voice phrase, servers, delegates and officials alike were drawn into the thoughtfully rendered lines, revelling collectively in the exquisite flow of craft and emotion. Wang-Bach had, for these precious seconds, wordlessly reminded everyone there just what the fuss is all about with our most universal art. Merci mille fois.